A Faith That Makes a Difference
by Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch:
Real Christianity has always been about transforming our world – not just individual souls:
Christianity is a very practical faith. It of course offers eternal dividends for those who embrace it, but it also has very real implications for life on this earth. It is not just about pie in the sky in the sweet bye and bye, but about positive and lasting significance and change in this world as well.
Although it obviously has a major focus on what lies ahead, Christianity is in many respects the most ‘this-worldly’ of all the major religions. It is not about pulling out of this world, sitting back, watching as things go down the tubes, and simply awaiting the next.
Instead, Christians are to be salt and light right now wherever they find themselves. They are to apply their faith to the whole of life. As such, we seek not just to get individual souls saved and going to heaven, but to have a transformative impact on the world around us.
And that has always been the case. As we read in Acts 17:6 (KJV), the early church “turned the world upside down.” And it has been doing so ever since. Wherever Christians went, social and culture improvements took place. Christians not only evangelised, but they established hospitals, set up schools, engaged in various acts of social reform, helped to raise the status of women and children, and so on.
The whole person in the whole world was ministered to, not just the soul. As the late Christian apologist Norman Geisler once put it:
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